Gate drive unit for a Dual-GCT

Today, Gate Commutated Thyristors (GCTs) are used in high power converters due to their high current switching and high voltage blocking capabilities. The optimization of these power switches is of utmost importance in order to increase the efficiency of the complete system. To achieve that, a novel semiconductor device was introduced, the Dual-GCT. In this paper, a Gate Drive Unit (GDU) for the Dual GCT is presented. Compared to standard IGCTs a size reduction of one third is achieved with equal switching capabilities. Additionally, extended functionalities that are usually not implemented in commercial drivers is introduced to obtain a better performance during the operation of the semiconductor device. Furthermore a Short Circuit Protection is described in detail which detects the short circuit in around 80 ns.